Shep and Whitford won the foursome against Bruce and Carroll, a result
due to Whitford’s superior drives and Carroll’s bad putting. They were
all in high humor when they returned to the clubhouse, chaffing one
another about their skill as they dressed. Shep made a tour of the
verandas, greeting his friends, answering questions as to Connie’s
health. The four men were going in at once and Shep, who had driven
Carroll out, suggested that he and Bruce change partners for the drive
home.
“There are a few little points about the game I want to discuss with
George,” he explained as they walked toward the parking sheds.
“All right,” Bruce assented cheerfully. “You birds needn’t be so set
up; next week Carroll and I will give you the trimming of your young
lives!”
“Ah, the next time!” Shep replied ironically, and drove away with
Whitford beside him....
“Shep’s coming on; he’s matured a lot since he went into the trust
company,” remarked Carroll, as he and Bruce followed Shep’s car.
“Good stuff in him,” said Bruce. “One of those natures that develops
slowly. I never saw him quite as gay as he was this afternoon.”
“He was always a shy boy, but he’s coming out of that. I think his
father was wise in taking him out of the battery plant.”
“No doubt,” Bruce agreed, his attention fixed on Shep’s car.
Shep had set a pace that Bruce was finding it difficult to maintain.
Carroll presently commented upon the wild flight of the car ahead,
which was cutting the turns in the road with reckless abandon, leaving
a gray cloud behind.
“The honor of my car is at stake!” said Bruce grimly, closing his
windshield against the dust.
“By George! If Shep wasn’t so abstemious you’d think he’d mixed alcohol
with his gas,” Carroll replied. “What the devil’s got into him!”
“Maybe he wants a race,” Bruce answered uneasily, remembering Shep’s
wild drive the night of their talk on the river. “There’s a bad turn at
the creek just ahead--he can’t make it at that speed!”
Bruce stopped, thinking Shep might check his flight if he found he
wasn’t pursued; but the car sped steadily on.
“Shep’s gone nutty or he’s trying to scare George,” said Carroll. “Go
ahead!”
Bruce started his car at full speed, expecting that at any minute Shep
would stop and explain that it was all a joke of some kind. The flying
car was again in sight, careening crazily as it struck depressions in
the roadbed.
“Oh, God!” cried Carroll, half-rising in his seat. Shep had passed
a lumbering truck by a hair’s breadth, and still no abatement in
his speed. Bruce heard a howl of rage as he swung his own car past
the truck. A danger sign at the roadside gave warning of the short
curve that led upward to the bridge, and Bruce clapped on his brakes.
Carroll, on the running board, peering ahead through the dust, yelled,
and as Bruce leaped out a crash ahead announced disaster. A second
sound, the sound of a heavy body falling, greeted the two men as they
ran toward the scene....
Shep’s car had battered through the wooden fence that protected the
road where it curved into the wooden bridge and had plunged into the
narrow ravine. Bruce and Carroll flung themselves down the steep bank
and into the stream. Shep’s head lay across his arms on the wheel;
Whitford evidently had tried to leap out before the car struck. His
body, half out of the door, had been crushed against the fence, but
clung in its place through the car’s flight over the embankment.
V
To the world Franklin Mills showed what passed for a noble fortitude
and a superb resignation in Shep’s death. Carroll had carried the news
to him; and Carroll satisfied the curiosity of no one as to what Mills
had said or how he had met the blow. Carroll himself did not know what
passed through Franklin Mills’ mind. Mills had asked without emotion
whether the necessary things had been done, and was satisfied that
Carroll had taken care of everything. Mills received the old friends
who called, among them Lindley. It was a proper thing to see the
minister in such circumstances. The rector of St. Barnabas went away
puzzled. He had never understood Mills, and now his rich parishioner
was more of an enigma than ever.
A handful of friends chosen by Constance and Mills heard the reading
of the burial office in the living-room of Shep’s house. Constance
remained in her room; and Mills saw her first when they met in the hall
to drive together to the cemetery, an arrangement that she herself had
suggested. No sound came from her as she stood between Mills and Leila
at the grave as the last words were said. A little way off stood the
bearers, young men who had been boyhood friends of Shep, and one or
two of his associates from the trust company. When the grave was filled
Constance waited, watching the placing of the flowers, laying her
wreath of roses with her own hands.
She took Mills’s arm and they returned to their car. No word was spoken
as it traversed the familiar streets. The curtains were drawn; Mills
stared fixedly at the chauffeur’s back; the woman beside him made no
sign. Nothing, as he thought of it, had been omitted; his son had been
buried with the proper rites of the church. There had been no bungling,
no hysterical display of grief; no crowd of the morbidly curious. When
they reached Shep’s house he followed Constance in. There were women
there waiting to care for her, but she sent them away and went into
the reception parlor. The scent of flowers still filled the rooms, but
the house had assumed its normal orderly aspect. Constance threw back
her veil, and Mills saw for the first time her face with its marks of
suffering, her sorrowing eyes.
“Had you something to say to me?” she asked quietly.
“If you don’t mind----” he answered. “I couldn’t come to you
before--but now--I should like you to know----”
As he paused she began to speak slowly, as if reciting something she
had committed to memory.
“We have gone through this together, for reasons clear to both of us.
There is nothing you can say to me. But one or two things I must say to
you. You killed him. Your contempt for him as a weaker man than you, as
a gentle and sweet soul you could never comprehend; your wish to manage
him, to thwart him in things he wanted to do, your wish to mold him and
set him in your own little groove--these are the things that destroyed
him. You shattered his faith in me--that is the crudest thing of all,
for he loved me. So strong was your power over him and so great was his
fear of you that he believed you. In spite of himself he believed you
when you charged me with unfaithfulness. You drove him mad,” she went
on monotonously; “he died a madman--died horribly, carrying an innocent
man down with him. The child Shep wanted so much--that he would have
loved so dearly--is his. You need have no fear as to that. That is all
I have to say, Mr. Mills.”
She left him noiselessly, leaving behind her a quiet that terrified and
numbed him. He found himself groping his way through the hall, where
someone spoke to him. The words were unintelligible, though the voice
was of someone who meant to be kind. He walked to his car, carrying his
hat as if he were unequal to the effort of lifting it to his head. The
chauffeur opened the door, and as he got in Mills stumbled and sank
upon the seat.
When he reached home he wandered aimlessly about the rooms, oppressed
by the intolerable quiet. One and another of the servants furtively
peered at him from discreet distances; the man who had cared for his
personal needs for many years showed himself in the hope of being
called upon for some service.
“Is that you, Briggs?” asked Mills. “Please call the farm and say that
I’m coming out. Yes--I’ll have dinner there. I may stay a day or two.
You may pack a bag for me--the usual things. Order the car when you’re
ready.”
He resumed his listless wandering, found himself in Leila’s old room,
and again in the room that had been Shep’s. It puzzled him to find
that the inspection of these rooms brought him no sensations. He felt
no inclination to cry out against the fate that had wrought this
emptiness, laid this burden of silence upon his house. Leila had gone;
and he had seen them put Shep into the ground.
“_You killed him._” This was what that woman in black had said. She had
said other things, but these were the words that repeated themselves
in his memory like a muffled drum-beat. On the drive to the farm he
did not escape from the insistent reiteration. He was mystified,
bewildered. No one had ever spoken to him like that; no one had ever
before accused him of a monstrous crime or addressed him as if he were
a contemptible and odious thing. And yet he was Franklin Mills. This
was the astounding thing,--that Franklin Mills should have listened to
such words and been unable to deny them....
At the farm he paused on the veranda, turned his face westward where
the light still lingered in pale tints of gold and scarlet. He remained
staring across the level fields, hearing the murmur of the wind in the
maples, the rustle of dead leaves in the grass, until the chauffeur
spoke to him, took his arm and led him into the house.